The Ballad of Sir Dinadan (7 page)

Dinadan's mouth dropped open. "You're joking," he said.

"I don't see why you're so shocked."

"Because it's stupid, of course. What good is—?"

"I don't see that it's more stupid than fighting another knight just to prove a point. As far as I can see, it's typical. Men! Knights! I've no patience with them." She tossed her hair back from her face again and stalked away down the hall.

Dinadan let her go and continued to the kitchens. While he ate a slab of bread and butter and drank some ale, he pondered Lady Brangienne's information. He understood now why Bedivere had not bothered him—not only was the task silly and demeaning, but it would not take very long. That question resolved, Dinadan amused himself by imagining Sir Kai's feelings concerning this "knightly task."

He soon saw for himself. Shortly after noon, Culloch returned, driving two oxen, one of them coated and the other spattered with yellow paint. Behind them rode a weary Bedivere and a glowering Sir Kai. King Isbaddadon happened to be in the courtyard when the small procession arrived. He guffawed loudly. "Odd's blood, boy! Where did you get that paint?"

Dinadan was standing nearby, but he didn't wait to hear Culloch's story. He strolled back to where Bedivere and Sir Kai sat on their horses. Bedivere greeted him with a faint smile. "Hello, lad. Sorry we left you behind this morning."

Dinadan glanced back over his shoulder at the cattle. "No need to apologize. I'd as soon not go on a fool's errand."

Sir Kai snorted. "Any errand our Culloch is sent on will be that."

"Maybe the second task will have more value," Bed-ivere said quietly. Sir Kai shook his head and scowled, and Dinadan could tell that even Bedivere didn't believe it.

They were right. Culloch's second task, received that evening, was to seek out and bring back a legendary magic goblet called the "Cup of Lloyr." They received the task in the banquet room, King Isbaddadon having decreed that every successful task should be celebrated by a feast. At first, Bedivere had been interested.

"Tell us more of this cup, your highness," he asked the king. "I have not heard of it before."

"It is an old tale of the Waleis people, and so you should begin your search in Wales."

Bedivere nodded and continued, "But what is the magical nature of this cup?" King Isbaddadon's brow furrowed, and Bedivere explained. "I mean does it have healing properties? Can it cure any ill? Right any wrong?"

King Isbaddadon roared with laughter. "Ay, it can do all that!" He laughed a moment longer, then said, a strange gleam in his eyes, "It is said that any wine drunk from this cup becomes the finest vintage and is stronger than any wine on earth!"

Bedivere closed his eyes, and Sir Kai muttered an oath, but Culloch's face lit up. "Now I call that something useful!"

Culloch, Bedivere, Sir Kai, and Dinadan left the next morning, accompanied (to the displeasure of everyone but Culloch) by Wadsworth the minstrel. As they rode, Wadsworth hummed to himself a painfully simple melody with a short, four-stress line—Dah—de—Dah—de—Dah—de—Dah—de—over and over. Sir Kai had looked fit for murder since they set out, but when he actually moved his hand to rest on his sword hilt, Dinadan judged it was time to intervene. "Wadsworth, my friend," he said. "As you are accompanying our hero on his, ah, noble quest, it seems fitting that you should write the song of his adventures."

Wadsworth looked at Dinadan coldly and sniffed. "Why, I'm sure I could not do it so well as your lordship," he said, his lips prim. Dinadan stifled a grin. So Wadsworth still smarted from his story's poor reception, and Dinadan's success, back at Isbaddadon's court.

"But of course you could," Dinadan replied soothingly.

"To be quite honest," Wadsworth said, "heroic tales are not my real strength. I am far more skilled at love songs."

"Why then, you should write a love song for Culloch," Dinadan said promptly. "After all, these tasks of his are performed for the love of the fair Olwen, aren't they, Culloch?"

"Eh?" Culloch replied, surprised. Dinadan innocently repeated his question, and Culloch stammered back, "Ah, yes. Why, by Jove, yes they are, aren't they?"

Wadsworth peered closely at Dinadan. "Do you ever write love songs?"

"I've never written a one."

"Then I challenge you! A duel of songsters! Each of us shall compose a song on Culloch's love for Olwen, and these knights shall judge between us!"

Dinadan felt a stir of pity for the old minstrel. Surely it must have been galling to have been shown up by a youth of Dinadan's age—who wasn't even really a minstrel. Resolving to compose a truly dreadful lyric so that Wadsworth could easily win, Dinadan agreed. Sir Kai then spoke suddenly. "This is an excellent plan for passing our time, but to make sure that each song is original, let us separate. Wadsworth, you ride ahead with Culloch—out of earshot, mind—and Dinadan stay with us."

It was the most pleasant part of the day. Dinadan took up his rebec and occasionally even played a few desultory notes and idly experimented with a few rhymes, but mostly he chatted with Bedivere. Even Sir Kai, away from Culloch and Wadsworth, thawed somewhat and became almost agreeable. Meanwhile, a quarter of a mile ahead on the path, they could see Wadsworth assiduously working at his lyre. Wadsworth must have taken the contest very seriously, because he worked at his song for almost four hours before at last he signaled his readiness to present the fruit of his efforts, and the two groups came together.

"Is your lordship ready?" the minstrel said.

"Whenever you are, friend Wadsworth," Dinadan said. "Shall I go first?"

Dinadan had offered out of generosity, feeling that it would be an advantage to go last, but Wadsworth's eyes narrowed with suspicion, and the minstrel launched into a long explanation of why it would be best for Dinadan to go last. Bored by Wadsworth's explanations, Dinadan agreed.

"My lords and ladies," Wadsworth began, assuming a formal tone.

"Ladies?" growled Sir Kai.

"I sing for you a melody of great love, the love of the noble Sir Culloch for his absent lady, the fair Olwen, for whom his soul longs, in whose memory his very breath moistens the air, and for whom his eyes stream tears." Here the minstrel paused, as if holding back tears himself.

"Off to a good start, eh?" Culloch asked cheerfully. "The next part's even better. I like the bit when he says—"

"Peace, Culloch," interrupted Bedivere. "Let the minstrel sing his own song."

Wadsworth continued. "The song is called, 'My Lief Is Faren in Londe,' which is to say, 'My love is far away.'"

"Then why the deuce don't you say it?" muttered Sir Kai, but at a look from Bedivere, he lapsed into silence. Without further introduction, Wadsworth began:

"My lief is faren in londe,
Alas, why did I go?
The cuckoo sings my song,
'Jug jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo.'

"I travel far and wide,
Great deeds for love to do,
But I, like the cuckoo, cry,
'Jug jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo.'

"Some day shall I be home
To gaze her eyes into?
I'll whisper as I come,
'Jug jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo.'"

When the minstrel finished, there was a long silence. Dinadan carefully avoided looking at Bedivere or Sir Kai, but he could not doubt what they were thinking—"This took all afternoon?"

"See why I like it?" Culloch said heartily. "I like the last part best, when I whisper that thing."

"Jug jug witta poo poo," Sir Kai supplied.

"Jug jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo," Wadsworth corrected, giving Sir Kai a condescending smile.

"Ah. My mistake," Sir Kai said with a solemn nod.

Wadsworth turned to Dinadan, triumph in his eyes. "Now, shall we hear what his lordship has prepared?"

With a shrug, Dinadan swung his leg around and settled himself comfortably in the saddle with his rebec. He played a few bars, then began playing the same annoying little four-beat melody that Wadsworth had been humming earlier. He raised his voice and sang with a quavering vibratto:

"Great Culloch can be brave and gay
Throughout the sunlit hours of day.
But when upon his bed he lies,
Why then, for Olwen fair he cries.

"He sees her face, her pigtail stout,
The freckles sprinkled on her snout.
Then from his chest he heaves a sob,
And in his throat there grows a gob.

"He weeps; his pillow sogs with tears;
It oozes up around his ears.
The flowing trickle from his nose
Doth stain his face and cake his clothes.

"Because he mourns the absent Ollie,
Doth Culloch nobly grieve, by golly."

Bedivere and Sir Kai did not speak, both shaking with suppressed mirth, but Culloch frowned. "Not meaning anything harsh, of course, Stearnes, but I didn't care for that one all that much."

Wadsworth's chin lifted. "If I might make a suggestion, lad, it was not seemly to use the familiar name 'Ollie' in your poem."

"Couldn't hatch a rhyme for Olwen," Dinadan explained. "But I'm sure you're right."

"I could give you some other pointers sometime," the minstrel suggested.

Dinadan forced a smile. "You'd be wasting your time, I'm afraid. I could never have written a song like yours." Wadsworth graciously accepted his victory, and Culloch began to talk about stopping for dinner.

Dinadan rolled over from his afternoon nap, stretched, then took up his rebec to play idly while he shook off the heavy feeling that came from sleeping during the day. He felt a twinge of guilt that he had not spent the day seeking the Cup of Lloyr, but it was only a twinge, and it passed quickly.

It was now three days since Culloch's search party had split up. After a while of asking everyone they met for the cup and receiving only puzzled stares, they had concluded that the quest would be more easily accomplished if they searched separately. They had set a place at which to meet again in three weeks' time, and then, to the relief of most of the party, had divided up. Dinadan, for his part, had asked two or three people he met if they had heard of the Cup of Lloyr, but recently he had been forgetting to ask. To be frank, the quest had begun to bore him.

When he was fully awake, he loaded up his horses and started off through the woods. He was looking for an inn where he might sing for his supper, but instead he found a knight, and a more majestic knight Dinadan had never seen, sitting still—almost as if posed—on a small hill, resplendent in gold-colored armor.

"Good morrow, friend," Dinadan called out pleasantly. The knight's visored helm moved slightly, so that the knight could see, but otherwise there was no response. "Well met," Dinadan said. At last the knight's helm nodded slightly, then returned to its former position. Dinadan shrugged and rode on, but a few minutes later he pulled up at the sound of hoofbeats behind. The golden knight was following. Dinadan waited for him to catch up.

"Pleasant day, isn't it?" Dinadan said.

The knight sighed loudly. "If you wish."

"I didn't have anything to do with it," Dinadan pointed out. "My name's Dinadan. And you are—?"

"I am a wandering knight, driven far from my home, where the love of my life is denied me by a cruel tyrant."

Dinadan nodded. "Bad luck," he said sympathetically.

"My love is the most beautiful lady in the world. I shall never be happy when I am away from her, and so I have sworn a vow of silence. I shall never again speak of her or of my love for her or of my grief."

"Won't you?" Dinadan asked. "Very ... very noble, I m sure.

"Perhaps, but I think nothing of that. It is only that there is no gain for me in uttering words that can only give me pain."

"Just so."

"To speak of the gold of her flaxen hair, to tell of the blue of her eyes, to express my love for her, than which there has never been such a love in all the history of man, cannot help me but rather can only harm me."

"You are quite right," Dinadan said. "Shall we ride in silence, then?"

"It would be to tear open my wound yet again, for every word I speak of her is as a red coal pressed to my breast, searing me to the very heart. I cannot speak her name. Nay, I cannot even speak my own, for to tell my own name is to speak of her, for what is Tristram but the slave of Iseult?"

Dinadan felt a chill in his heart, and he found himself unable to look at his companion. Was this fellow his brother? No, it couldn't be. After all, wouldn't his brother Tristram have recognized him—or at least recognized the name when Dinadan had introduced himself. "Are you really Sir Tristram?" he asked timidly.

"Who told you so?" the gold knight demanded.

"You did. Just now." The knight was silent, and Dinadan continued. "The same Sir Tristram who killed Sir Marhault?"

"The same."

"The son of Sir Meliodas of the Fens?"

This time the knight did not reply at once. "How came you to know that?" he asked.

"I am ... I am somewhat acquainted with your family. I know your father and your brother."

"Brother?"

"Your younger brother."

Again Tristram hesitated, then straightened suddenly. "Why yes! I did have a brother! A paltry, skinny waif of no skill and no promise. I do remember! How do you know my father?"

Dinadan took a slow breath and looked at the empty forest ahead of him. "It doesn't matter," he said. "You should be keeping your vow of silence, after all."

Tristram agreed with this plan, at some length. He appeared to be much more impressed with the dramatic effect of taking a vow than he was with the inconvenience of keeping it. He may as well have kept it, though; Dinadan did not listen.

He could not explain why it so distressed him to meet his brother again and find him less than he had expected. It wasn't as if he had ever been close to Tristram or, for that matter, had ever had anything to do with him at all, except to admire him from afar. Nevertheless, when he thought back on his earlier self and remembered his childhood fantasies of one day riding side by side with his glorious brother, going on quest together, he writhed inside. It had all come true, after a fashion, but this fatuous clodpole beside him, jabbering incessantly about his noble vow of silence, had not been a part of that daydream.